An Undisturbed Night

An Undisturbed Night

An Undisturbed Night

By: Irene Gunston, 1988
Medium: cast bronze
Size: 90mm
Cast by: the artist
Edition: 22

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This is the second medal that Irene Gunston, born in 1960, has made for BAMS. It forms part of a series of night medals with sleeping figures, begun while the artist was taking part in the 1997 Finnish Small Sculpture and Medal Symposium (See The Medal, 32 (1998), pp 95-9). The figure is represented as an infilled, engraved line drawing on a taut, reverse-meniscoid surface. On the obverse is a primal, nocturnal ‘Scape’ in a deeper relief. Gunston’s interest in drawing, and in relating figure to format, has resulted in a stylistic echo of the inscribed decorations on the reverse of antique Greek mirrors, whilst the deeper relief on the obverse owes more to her interest in Romanesque carving and manuscript decoration. As the artist’s involvement in medal making has progressed, she has seen it neither as a platform for didactic issue-tackling, nor an arena for neat conceptual tropes. Rather she has treated the form as an opportunity for an open, metaphorical play with meaning and image.